Meet Mark Begich, Alaska's Next Senator

This is really good to see.

Alaska’s U.S. Senate race between Republican incumbent Ted Stevens and Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich has been a toss-up for several months now, but the Democratic challenger is now ahead 50% to 41%. When “leaners” are included, Begich leads 52% to 44%.

Begich began running his first television ads of the campaign on July 8 and the survey was conducted nine days later.

I've blogged about those ads previously, but this week I got to know Mark Begich as a person. He held an informal event with a bunch of us bloggers on Thursday at Netroots Nation, and because of the whirlwind of events I haven't gotten around to it until today. Begich, the mayor of Anchorage, which has 43% of the population of the state (and 70% of the media market), got into the campaign late for very calculated reasons. First of all, media is cheap, and an ad buy like he's started can have an immediate impact. Begich outraised Series of Toobz Ted Stevens in the second quarter, so he will have the needed resources. He had the same strategy in 2003, when he beat the sitting incumbent mayor of Anchorage in a close vote, and then went on to manage the city out of fiscal crisis and got them on better footing. The key, to him, is to be direct - to shoot straight with people and tell them what you believe. He calls in to any conservative talk show and even engages with random commenters on the Anchorage Daily News blog - so much so that his campaign staff has had to rein him in a bit!

Alaska is really a different kind of state, one that relies on help from the federal government because of its proximity and relies on the oil and gas industry for its wealth. Ted Stevens has cynically used this to steer contracts to his political friends and allies, but as Begich said "his clout is no longer working for Alaskan families," and there's a disconnect between the state's needs and the rhetoric in Washington. The one question I got to ask him was about oil exploration, because it's interesting that his first ad, in Alaska, was about his commitment to wind energy. "I couldn't have run that ad a couple years ago," he said, "but things are changing. Alaska is starting to view itself as an energy state, not an oil and gas state. He gave the example of salmon fishers off the coast (about 50% of our salmon come from this area) not being able to ice down their catches because it's now too expensive to pay for the energy to generate the ice. So their solution was an ice barge for all the ships and boats, powered by tidal energy. Alaskans are feeling these problems every day, and it's a common thread that unites them. And it can be the spur to real innovations and diversification of our energy future. That comes with a comprehensive energy policy, and while it's clear that Begich would vote for drilling in ANWR - although he said that a lot of the oil could be sucked up by nearby existing fields if they bent their pipes a little bit - he would use it as part of a comprehensive energy policy, which we currently don't have.

There are other issues in the campaign as well, including the SCOTUS (the reduction of the fine necessary for Exxon to pay in the Valdez aftermath weighs big with voters) and veteran's issues (11% of the state are vets, and yet there's NO VA HOSPITAL up there). The good numbers notwithstanding, this race isn't over - Begich described a 3-4 point "rubber band effect" where voters often come back to the GOP in the last week, and the local press is notoriously soft on the legendary Stevens. But there's a real opportunity here to send a pragmatic progressive to Washington who has the competence, the ability and the principles to lead Alaska in the Senate. I was pretty impressed.

Bill Scher at Liberal Oasis and CAF also interviewed Begich and has the video to prove it. That's below. See in particular his thoughts on protecting our fundamental constitutional rights from the politics of fear, and his beliefs about the netroots.